Saturday, November 21, 2009

In an address recorded in Seoul, South Korea, the President discusses his trip to Asia. He talks about his push to stop nuclear proliferation in North Korea, Iran, and around the world. He talks about promoting Americas principles for an open society in China while making progress on joint efforts to combat climate change. And talks in-depth about the primary objective of his trip: engaging in new markets that hold tremendous potential to spur job creation here at home. November 21, 2009.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Look, whether you are for single payer, the public option, moderate changes in the health care legislation, everyone on here knows how Rahm Emanuel operates. I am not mad at him, he is who he is. A moderate, corporatist democrat. He was successful in bringing in massive Democrats like, Heath Shuler, to our party. He is a blue dog, so be it.

But saying, "Just give us anything and we will declare victory", sorry that is not enough. In fact it is piss poor.

Everyone take a deep breath because what you imagined or wanted, will not be, not the way and track I see it. Health care will be watered down and the public option, the way it is presented now is a joke. Only covers 6 million people? Do you honestly think that will get any insurance company's attention?

Now Congressman John Conyers comes out very hard on Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel, before anyone says anything about Obama, let's look at the facts and trajectory of this health care bill.

We have been arguing and fighting about this practically since Obama became president. No one on here can argue that the communication, handling and leadership from congress has been the best, it has not been. And we all know that if health care reform was a slam dunk, President Obama would not have needed to do a second Joint Sessions of Congress speech all on health care, after the summer madness.

Today is November 19, 2009. January 1, 2010 starts the mid term election campaigning. Do you think the White House wants this to linger any longer? No, they don't. Right now health care reform is an albatross, one that was handled badly. And to be honest, I understand though I do not agree, why Emanuel will state give us anything. They want this GONE and need something to campaign on, even though it will be a watered down bill.

The 22-term congressman was critical of the White House on fronts beyond just health care. He led off the interview by declaring that he was tied of "trying to stop the war in Afghanistan from surging." He also took several swipes at Emanuel, whom he called, with a slightly derogatory tone, his "buddy."

"That is essentially what Rahm Emanuel has said: Just give us anything and we will declare victory," said Conyers. "Not only is it not a victory, but when it doesn't work, guess who will come at him: the same guys that were saying let's go along with anything... This is all my buddy Rahm Emanuel trying to get anything. But look the bill doesn't go into effect for three years. Many of the people that we are trying to help will be dead by then."

So, again today is November 19, 2009 and that clock is ticking loudly to put this baby to sleep, by accepting anything necessary.

And in the end, the White House will, because the midterm elections will not be won or lost on health care, it will be the economy and lack of JOB CREATION in this country. Look around you, when you have 20M or close unemployed, where do you thing that anger will be at the polls?

No one said it better about the public option than Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR):

Again, Wyden stated, "...United Health Care has 70M subscribers, now how in the world are you going to hold the United Health people accountable with 6M subscribers, United Health is not going to exactly be quakin' in there boots...."

He is right. The public option needs to be opened to EVERYONE to compete with the insurance companies. Again, this is why the insurance companies do not what the public option for fear that opening it to everyone, will FORCE them to CHANGE.

This is real reform, not the shaky stuff that is coming out of congress. Why even have a public option if it is only for 6M people? Does that make any sense to anyone? Because for me, 6M subscribers for the public option is a joke. That is not even a challenge to the insurance companies, but a laugh and business as usual for a very corrupt industry.

Lastly, everyone should be concerned at the date. Today is November 18, 2009. The longer this drags out, the harder it will be for any real reform in the final senate bill. These congress critters are not going to embrace any progressive platform once January 1, 2010 hits. Why? Because too much money is being paid for NO votes in congress, that is the truth. And because the Obama White House has a much larger task on their plate, the continued rising unemployment numbers in this country and the perceived perception that he is not doing enough. This White House needs to focus on unemployment and job creation in this country, this issue is how you lose in 2010. And health care? It has been dragged out too long, yes there will be a bill but don't expect any huge amount of change but a slap on the hand to these corrupt insurance companies, especially if the public option is designed for only 6M people.

Truly, this woman lies like the running water out of your tap and just don't give a damn. When you write a book, folks do VETT IT, along with what you said, like, last year as a VP candidate, and it is on tape? Lord, she is one woman destroying machine and that is destroying herself. And why bring Tina Fey back in here? After she actually destroyed you on Saturday Night Live, by using the EXACT words that Sarah Palin said in the interview with Katie Couric!!! GOP, Republicans if this is who you want in 2012, GOOD LUCK!!!

And if the Obama White House don't at least LOOK LIKE they are doing something, you can kiss 2010 good-bye, Democrats. And perception continues that Wall Street and these banks are partying like it is 1999, while we, the taxpayers are barely making it into 2010!! WAKE UP OBAMA ADMINISTRATION. The fight and letting this health care debate go so long, may be a price paid here.

Lastly, there are many who will say, the President can not do anything. The reality here is this, when folks are hurting, the voters point the FINGER at who is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. That is the fact, folks.

Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening. While the official unemployment rate is already 10.2% and another 200,000 jobs were lost in October, when you include discouraged workers and partially employed workers the figure is a whopping 17.5%.

While losing 200,000 jobs per month is better than the 700,000 jobs lost in January, current job losses still average more than the per month rate of 150,000 during the last recession.

Also, remember: The last recession ended in November 2001, but job losses continued for more than a year and half until June of 2003; ditto for the 1990-91 recession.

So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back.

There's really just one hope for our leaders to turn things around: a bold prescription that increases the fiscal stimulus with another round of labor-intensive, shovel-ready infrastructure projects, helps fiscally strapped state and local governments and provides a temporary tax credit to the private sector to hire more workers. Helping the unemployed just by extending unemployment benefits is necessary not sufficient; it leads to persistent unemployment rather than job creation.

This is the reality. The health care argument/debate has and was handled badly by the White House. This bill should have been a done deal and Obama should have stated, with no questions, what he WOULD sign in a bill and what he would NOT sign in a bill. That did not happen, he gave it to the congress and well, we saw what happened. Today is November 16, 2009, the longer this legislation is dragged out, which it is, the quicker the White House will compromise, do whatever to get this thing signed and put a stamp of REFORM on it.

Will it be reform? I doubt it. But, we will see. In the meantime, as people continue to lose their jobs and health care, there are NO JOBS in sight for many in this country. Talk about 2 year, plus, unemployment. No joke, that is what is going on here.

2010, all about the economy and JOBS. Democrats make sure you craft your message very carefully, because many are angered at the continued bailout banks, bailing out of Wall Street and feeling LEFT BEHIND and/or forgotten.

That is the anger reality out here and the Democrats need to fix this.

Well, President Obama has been expedient in delivering information to the American Public, via, press conferences. And let us not forget he has had 2 Joint Session of Congress speeches. So, Fox News, who continues to prove the point of the White House as being as bogus a news organization as it comes, decides to pull the plug on President Obama's press conferences. Remember, the news organizations TODAY are not what they were back in Walter Cronkite's era, meaning the news is nothing but continued SPIN, meaning the news organizations lack depth of much information that they talk about. So, enter the whining of "he has not has any press conferences in four months." But, it was these very entities that whined that President Obama was asking for too much time on television.

Could it be that a lot of these television networks, just may not be making much as in money and don't have as many, as in eyeballs on their television line ups?

But Obama in 2009 is deeply relevant, and for a long time was burning up the wires to the press corps and regular folks. Then suddenly, the line went dead.

Obama is still, in his overall stats, ahead of President George W. Bush , who viewed the press as a kind of a species of cactus. But in a White House that regularly touts itself as a beacon of “openness” — and in some ways it has been — Obama in recent months has demonstrated that when he thinks he needs a little opaqueness, he can make it happen.

The president’s last full-dress U.S. press conference was nearly four months ago, a prime-time appearance in the East Room on July 22.

I continue to question the media, the same element that did not prepare, nor did their job in providing accurate information about the Iraq War. This same element that just re-read talking points of the Bush Administration and claimed it fact. For me, they have no credibility at all and should always be viewed with high skepticism, especially the 24/7 cable desk clerks.

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